We have heavy snow fall last night, the streets are covered with snow this morning and the road condition is pretty bad. Many people left their cars at home and take the sky train to work. I have to go to downtown this morning, so I am one of the crowd in the sky train station. The sky train rail is covered with snow, which the computer auto pilot system cannot handle, so for the first time, I see sky train drivers. The single seat at the front of the train is indeed the driver’s seat. There is a hidden control panel under the windshield. Since the train service is limited and more than usual train riders, the station is full of people waiting to get on the train. The trains are so full that I can only manage to squeeze myself into the 3rd train. I feel like I am in a can of sardine fish. On a normal day, the train is not totally packed even on the rush hours. People can still move around quite easily. Last time I feel like a sardine was riding the HK MTR, I never thought the sky train can also be this full.
Indian Visa
Everyone traveling to India need to apply for a visa. India is famous for their bureaucracy, so the apply for a visa needs to fill out many forms. First I have to get two Indian passport size photo, which is difference size than a Canadian passport. Then I have to get two letters of reference, one from my company and one from the company I am visiting. I also have to fill out a from provide detail information on my trip, answering irrelevant questions, such as how much I make. I feel that is an invade of privacy, want the Indian government wants my salary for? On what ground that they think my salary is related the nature of my travel? At last, I have to fill in the real application from, which ask not only my information, but also my parent’s information. How can where my dad was born be related to my trip?
India always boast their success in outsourcing in the high tech industry. They claim they will be one of the major economy power in the world. If they really want to go global, they really have to reform their traveling policy. They have to be more welcome to the foreigners. We go to you place to spend money, why you set up so many hurdles not letting me come? I can understand why USA have a tight visa policy, because they have the problem of illegal immigrants. No one wants to immigrate to India. I am pretty sure everyone travel to India for work wants to go home as soon as possible. They don’t have to worry about we will be staying in India illegally. Why can’t they just grant us visa free entry to save everyone’s trouble?
Honey Moon Planning
Honey moon is the most important part of getting marry. The wedding day is more an event for family and friends, and for the formality and paper works. The honey moon is the enjoying experience for the newly wed couple. I am assigned the task of planning our honey moon.
Pat want to have the real papal blessing from the Pope, Rome has to be in the itinerary. Yes, it is the real papal blessing from the Pope, face to face, not just a phony piece of paper. We know at least two couples got the real papal blessing, we just have to go through the paper work with the Church. I want to relax in the honey moon, so no back packing style city hopping. Package guided tour is out of question, since it won’t work with our papal blessing schedule. With so many constraints, I come up with a perfect itinerary.
Fly to Rome, stay there for a few days, then take Mediterranean cruise. We will let the ship take us to visit different cities. I already narrow my decisions down to two choices. A 7 nights Royal Caribbean cruise or a 10 nights Celebrity cruise. Both are round trip cruise boarding from Rome, so the traveling is minimal. Since the ship return to Rome on 5a.m., we can go straight to the airport and catch the 12:30p.m. return flight to Vancouver. The question is should I trade 2 extra days in Rome with visiting 3 more ports.
Hit and run
Today I have a mysterious hit and run. I was driving on the Sea to Sky Highway coming back from Whistler. The road condition was pretty bad, it was snowing and the road is icy. I drove slowly and very careful. There was a pickup truck in front of me suddenly put on its brake, probably because the car in front of him also break. I brake at once, but the ABS is not working. I couldn’t turn either, the wheels has no tracking. My car is slowly hitting the back of the pickup truck, slide to the side of the road and have half of the front buried in the snow. The airbag is not deployed and we have 3 or 4 seconds to prepare for the impact. Very luck, we were not hit by cars fellowing us, so no one in the car is hurt. The first car following us somehow has very fast reaction, they manage to cut to the left and pass us. The car fellowing turned sideway and pull over ditching into the snow. There were quite a few cars ditched into the snow behind us.
It’s in snowing, it’s dark and it’s on the highway. We remember the safety tips, stay in car, call the insurance company, call the tow truck company and wait for help. I can see a few cars stopped about 50 meters ahead of us. Probably they can’t break and have some collisions. I would expect the driver of the pickup truck come over to get my driver license, but no one ever come by. The police came but they ignore us and go straight to the cars stopping in the front. They didn’t come back to ask us anything either. When the tow truck finally came, the pickup truck is already gone. I hit someone and he ran away, I guess it is still a hit and run.
I don’t know what is going on. I definitely hit someone, the front of my car is damaged. The fend flew away, the hood and a side panel is deformed. The pickup truck seems didn’t realize he was hit. The good thing is that no one reports the collision to ICBC and make a claim, I can keep the same safety status. We have speculated a few theories why the pickup truck ran away. One possibility is the pickup is so strong that there is virtually no damage to its back. Another possibility is the driver had alcohol, so he want to get away before the police come. The most probably but hard to believe scenario is like this. When our tow truck drive away, we do see a car have similar damage in the front as my car. Remember the car following us who manage to dodge us? I think they rear end the pickup as well. The pickup couldn’t tell two hits from one hit, so just copy down the driver license of the other driver.
After many hours of troubles, my car finally arrived at the body shop. I hope my car is repairable. It would be a lot of headache if my car is totaled. I would have to shell out extra money to buy a new car.
Booking my flight to India
This afternoon, I was booking my flight to India. There are not many airlines flying direct to Bangalore. I am not adventure enough to take an internal flight inside India, so my options are limited.
The most straight forward path is taking Air Canada/Lufthansa, making a transfer in Frankfurt. The connection time is perfect, not much time is wasted in the airport. The itinerary looks great except it is flying via Europe. India is exactly 12 time zones away from Vancouver, so flying west should be the same as flying east.
Only Singapore airline have direct flight to Bangalore. Somehow, the travel booking websites somehow couldn’t route the flight via Singapore. They always route it through Europe. I have to print out Singapore airline’s flight schedule and try to work out the connect flights myself. Singapore airline only flies 3 days a week form Vancouver to Singapore, so I can’t leave on Friday as planned. The flight arriving at 11p.m and the daily flight from Singapore to Bangalore is at 10p.m. The timing of the connect flight is not looking good. I can also fly to San Francisco first, then to HK, then to Singapore and catch the direct flight to Bangalore. It will be 3 stops compare to 1 stop taking Lufthansa, not very desirable either.
At the end, I book with Lufthansa to save the trouble. For the 2nd trip, maybe I will stop by HK and try the SFO route of Singapore airline. Too bad that HK has no direct flight to Bangalore, yet. Dragonair will have daily flight to Bangalore starting May 1. Taking Cathy Pacific and Dragonair, stop over in HK would be the best flight itinerary.